Spring Break Missions 2018: Mexico City
Hello everyone! Over Spring Break, I had to opportunity to see God working in a new way at Mexico City. Along with 7 other members from my fellowship at Newsong Church in Santa Ana, my team went to help at “El Pozo De Vida” or “The Well of Life”. This organization fights against human trafficking and has a variety of programs installed throughout the city. The founders of the organization was the family that our team stayed with throughout the week. Here’s a brief summary of the highlights of my trip!
One of the most impactful moments of the trip happened on the first night of the trip (Saturday), where our team was thrown into a ‘block party’. To clarify, a 'block party' is an event held by members of the organization to in an area where human trafficking / prostitution occurs in an attempt to detour the sex business happening on the streets. Most of the women who are on the streets are being overlooked by 'pimps', who are people who are in charge of watching over the prostitutes / trafficking to make sure they are doing their job. Our job was to walk around the nearby streets to invite the women with food and water to come to our corner where we played music, offered manicures, and feet washing. At first, it was fairly empty and hard to convince them to come over. However, towards the late night, we were able to get many women to come over as well as a pimp as well. There was a lot of emotion but also a lot of hope that filled the place. In my own eyes, I didn't know too much about human trafficking and to see it all unfold right in front of my eyes was both mind-blowing and confusing. One crazy thing is that I would look up every few minutes but the landscape would be totally different. Sometimes it would be empty one minute, and the next minute, the streets would be filled with women. Everything moved so quickly that I felt overwhelmed at one point. But to see so many women come to our block party for cleansing and healing was a sign of hope that impacted my perspective for the rest of the trip.
Throughout the rest of the week, our team visited various programs and heard many stories from other women and their journey through human trafficking. On Sunday, I had the chance to visit “Casa Transitorio” or ‘Transition Home’, which is a place that helps girls around our age to transition from the safe house (more info below!) into the real world instead of being thrown in without any experience of being independent.
Now for our main mission for the trip, our team went to visit ‘The Well’ starting on Tuesday. Here, 8 girls currently live at this safe house and have been rescued from human trafficking. They are all around high school age and each have unique stories about their past. Personally, I had the opportunity to bond with each and every single one of them because their hearts are so open. The girls are very easy going and are super interested in running around, playing board games, and especially dancing! As a team, we took them to the movies, held a BBQ, and enjoyed time with them at the park as well. I remember being fearful on the car ride on the first day because I wasn’t sure what exactly I was supposed to do. Despite the language barrier, I found myself enjoying every moment of each day. And every day, I became more comfortable in using the limited Spanish that I knew. In hindsight, I could tell that the girls were so genuine because they were so happy just to see us and I quickly realized that I didn't need to bring anything special except my time to make a difference in their lives. I remember hearing from others that the girls have a false view of men because of the abuse they've gone through, and every moment that we smile and spend time with them goes a long way in changing that narrative and fixing their knowledge of what love really is.
Overall, this missions trip was eye opening because it was a different type of missions and there was a lot of unexpected emotions and feelings that were brought out. If you would like to check out my full blog post from every day of the trip, feel free to visit it @ http://bwam-mxc.blogspot.com/ ! Thanks for your time!
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